If the committee really and truly takes an unbiased approach and only looks at the resume and strength of each team, Wake Forest should not be ranked ahead of Cincinnati. To this point in the season, the Demon Deacons have played really good football, yet they have not faced a single ranked team, and likely won’t face a single ranked team all season.
While this is not a case of “2020 BYU or 2021 UTSA” as the competition is still P5 competition, Wake Forest has done nothing to prove that they should be better than any other ranked team not ranked UTSA.
Debate.
Cincinnati has the second best win of the entire season by beating Notre Dame on the road. Outside of that however, the Bearcats’ best win has come against 5-3 UCF. How will the voters treat them?
Perhaps the biggest question is how much the Committee values the win over Notre Dame, because we all know that if not for that game, it would be a stretch to have Cincinnati in the Top 15, at least based off of what history has told us in this rivalry.